The Solution — How TrackForge Rates a Catalogue
A rights rating agency
TrackForge does for music catalogues what credit rating agencies do for bonds: it provides a standardised, independent assessment of quality that any market participant can use to compare assets and price risk.
But there is a crucial difference. A credit rating is an opinion backed by the agency's reputation. A TrackForge rating is a deterministic evaluation backed by mathematical proof. You do not have to trust TrackForge — you can verify the result yourself.
What gets assessed
Every track in a catalogue is evaluated on two dimensions:
1. How complete is the metadata?
Does the track have the identifiers, writer data, and registration information needed for royalties to flow? Completeness is scored on four tiers:
- Gold — Fully verified with independent corroboration across multiple sources. ISRCs confirmed on streaming platforms, writer data cross-referenced with collecting society records, ownership shares reconciled.
- Silver — Structurally complete. All required fields present and internally consistent, but not independently confirmed by multiple sources.
- Bronze — Partially enriched. Some fields verified or supplemented, but gaps remain.
- Declared — Owner-submitted data only. Not independently verified. This is where every track starts.
2. Is the work actually collecting?
Separately from metadata completeness: is there evidence that the composition is registered with collecting societies and that royalties are flowing? A track can have perfect metadata but no evidence of active collection — or vice versa.
Portfolio grades
TrackForge uses a two-layer rating system: individual tracks are certified as Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Declared (based on verification depth), and these track-level assessments aggregate into a portfolio grade from AAA to D (weighted by revenue). This is analogous to how bond rating agencies assess individual bonds AND bond portfolios.
Track-level assessments are aggregated into a portfolio grade from AAA through D, weighted by revenue:
| Grade | Revenue secured by verified metadata |
|---|---|
| AAA | 95%+ |
| AA | 85–94% |
| A | 70–84% |
| BBB | 50–69% |
| BB | 30–49% |
| B | 10–29% |
| C | 1–9% |
| D | Less than 1% |
Revenue weighting is important. A catalogue might have 500 tracks rated Bronze and 50 rated Gold — but if those 50 Gold tracks generate 90% of revenue, the portfolio grade reflects that concentration.
What a rating does NOT do
A TrackForge rating does not determine copyright ownership, settle disputes, guarantee that no future claim will arise, or provide legal advice. It attests that a documented, repeatable verification process was followed and that the metadata was in the stated condition at the stated time. The precise scope is documented in What Certification Does and Does Not Mean.
The Chinese Wall
TrackForge provides both enrichment services (improving metadata) and rating services (assessing metadata). These functions are structurally separated: separate databases, no shared write access. Rating evaluations are performed against the data as submitted, not enriched data. The methodology, scoring criteria, and grade boundaries are published and cannot be adjusted per engagement. This separation is documented in detail in Rating Independence.
What makes this different
| Traditional consultant report | TrackForge certification | |
|---|---|---|
| Output | Bespoke opinion | Standardised grade (AAA–D) |
| Methodology | Proprietary, varies by firm | Published, versioned, deterministic |
| Reproducibility | Cannot be independently verified | Any party can reproduce the result |
| Comparability | Each report is unique | Grades are comparable across catalogues |
| Evidence | "We reviewed and found..." | Mathematical proof |
| Cost | Fixed $100K–$300K | Scales with catalogue size |
| If the assessor disappears | Report becomes unverifiable | Proofs remain valid indefinitely |
Next: Independent Verification — Why You Don't Have to Trust Us